LICENSE PLATE COVER TRIGGERS WARNING

The other day, Larry Borden of Vista was stopped at a traffic signal when a police officer pulled up alongside him.

The officer issued a warning without even making Borden pull over. He just rolled down the window, then drove off when the light changed.

“He told me to take off the plastic covering over my license plate,” Borden said.

The Vista man was stunned. Borden would say later that he doesn’t understand what the fuss was all about.

“You can read the plate just fine,” he said.

It turns out, that doesn’t matter.

Officer Jake Sanchez, a California Highway Patrol spokesman in San Diego, said state law is pretty specific about license-plate covers. And most of the ones he sees day in and day out run afoul of the law.

“You can’t have any covering over your license plate numbers at all, even if it is transparent and clear,” Sanchez said in a telephone interview last week. “Whether it is clear or not … when any light is directed onto that clear cover, it actually obstructs the view of that license plate from (toll lane) cameras and officers.”

There is an exception to the rule.

“A lot of people like to put the license-plate covers on because people steal their tags,” Sanchez said. And he said the law permits a smaller sheet of plastic — if clear and readily visible — to cover those tags.

“But it cannot cover the plate numbers at all,” Sanchez said.

“It’s just something that a lot of people might not be aware of,” he added. “It’s not something that is out of control. But I do see it quite regularly, driving down the freeway.”

Sanchez said the violation is essentially a fix-it ticket that can be dismissed once the problem is corrected.

It may also be important for motorists to know that license-plate frames may not block month and year tags. Also, license plates are supposed to be displayed on both the front and back of vehicles.

The goal of the latter, Sanchez said, is to promote quick, easy identification, and to prevent unused plates from being tacked onto stolen vehicles.

And by the way, you can’t lawfully tint your windshield or either front window. Only windows behind the driver may be tinted.

“That’s another violation that they can be stopped for,” Sanchez said.